The House Always Wins

CHAPTER 1

Jonathan McAllister was a gambling man. You could bet your life on that.

He loved the risk. He craved the adrenaline rush which the thrill of uncertainty sent coursing through his veins. And he reveled in the intoxicating high that accompanied each new win.

His willingness to stake everything on a probability was the primary reason he had been so fortunate in business. Three hundred and fifty-seven million dollars’ worth of fortunate, to be exact. It was also the reason he was embarking upon his third marriage to the lovely Brittany McAllister nee Joseph, a leggy brunette who had fallen in love with his bank account first and its signatory sometime thereafter.

He might be a risk-taker, but he was no fool; he harbored no illusions regarding his twenty-three-year-old bride’s decision to marry someone more than twice her age. He knew that he wasn’t much to behold with his average stature and average build, and his salt-and-pepper curls which maintained a permanent tousle despite his best efforts; so he was well aware of what had first attracted his wife’s interest. But he had been smitten with the aspiring model from the moment he first caught sight of her at one of his cocktail parties, so he was happy to play the role of ‘sugar daddy’ in order to have the beauty at his side, and in his bed.

However, despite his rather middling physique, the casual observer would in fact consider him quite an attractive man. His cobalt eyes forever carried the gleam of an excited child on Christmas morning, and told the tale of the extraordinary life he had led throughout the years – the sky-diving escapades and the deep-sea diving expeditions, the race cars he had owned and driven in competitions, and every other crazy exploit at which he had tried his hand in his lifelong quest for the next electric buzz.

Still, it had come as a shock to all who knew him when he announced his intention to abandon it all for an unspecified period of time in order to journey to the Isle of Skye to visit his ancestral home, especially considering it had been a mere three months since he had taken that leap into wedded bliss. His reason for doing so was also beyond their comprehension, despite the unwavering certainty which permeated his tone as he informed them that ‘the project’, as he had taken to calling his trip, was going to make him a household name.

“He’s going to live in some haunted castle that his great-great-great-grandfather or somebody built, and write a book about all the little ghosties living there,” his blushing bride informed her three giggling girlfriends as they lounged poolside sipping their vodka martinis.

Seated on the chaise lounge beside her, Jonathan hid a smile behind his newspaper as Thomas, his longtime butler and friend, brought out another round of drinks for the ladies.

She was right, for the most part.

It was not a castle. It was a mere farmhouse. And he was not going there to write a book. He was going there to pen a New York Times bestseller.

The farmhouse which was his intended destination sat on a fifty-acre sprawl of ranch situated somewhere on the outskirts of Kilmarie in the Strathaird peninsula, and had been in his family for well over a century. Completed in 1889, its original owner was rumored to have excused himself from the presence of his sanity once its construction was finished, and Callum McAllister had hacked his wife and their seven children to death with a machete before proceeding to relieve himself of life via the business end of a shotgun.

Since then, the property had changed ownership on a regular basis, passing from one family member to the next. But, for those brave enough, or perhaps foolhardy enough, to assume residency at the farmhouse, their fates had all seemed inextricably bound to its owner’s.

In the spring of 1917, Callum’s nephew, Boyd, had settled his family there. All had seemed well for a time, their contentment helping to dispel the rumors that the property was either haunted or cursed; and the family had created an abundance of loving memories there until the fall of 1918 when Boyd lined them off against the barn wall like prisoners of war condemned to go before a firing squad. Four shots had brought an end to the happiness, and the fifth had traveled through Boyd’s chin to splatter his brain across the floor of the barn.

In 1959, after changing ownership twice more, the house had fallen to Richard McAllister. Eager to create a luxurious country dwelling for his family, he had immediately set about the task of expanding and renovating the farmhouse, hoping that the addition of his personal stamp would also help to expel the ill repute which surrounded his inheritance. By the summer of 1960, the house had been readied, and it was with an overflowing sense of pride that he had taken his wife and daughter to their new home. He had returned one evening not long thereafter to find them in the front yard, kneeling at the newly-installed fountain as if in prayer, both face-down in the water. His despair had been so great upon making that horrific discovery that he had sought refuge from it at the end of a length of rope which he had looped over a rafter in one of the barns behind the house.

After that tragedy, the farmhouse had remained unoccupied until 1992 when Sean McAllister found himself the unexpected heir to the property. Upon visiting his inheritance, he had been dismayed to find it almost in ruins, the result of its long abandonment, and had taken upon himself the daunting task of rebuilding the century-old farmhouse. Some believed that doing so had sealed his fate, and they postulated that the outcome may have differed had he chosen to demolish the original structure and start afresh.

His formidable project had taken longer than he had initially anticipated, and three years had gone by before the restoration was finally completed and he was able to move his family into their new home. Once again, all had seemed well, and the family had settled into life at the farmhouse with a surprising ease. That Christmas, the new mistress of the house had served a lavish feast of stewed lamb and arsenic, thereby ending the holiday festivities for not only the McAllisters but also their extended family who had been seated at the dining table with them. Supposedly, Mrs. McAllister had used enough of her secret ingredient to end an entire town, and the police had found all in attendance still slumped over in their stew two days later.

Rights to both the farmhouse and its alleged curse were then handed over to Daniel McAllister, who had sworn that he had no interest whatsoever in the accursed property. A safety deposit box had been rented exclusively to store the deed at the JP Morgan Chase on Nineteenth Street, and the key to that box was stashed in another rented at the Wells Fargo on the opposite side of town. However, upon his passing in 2010, his will had turned over ownership of his entire estate, including the farmhouse and all of its assets, to his sole heir – one Jonathan McAllister, who was nothing if not a gambling man.

In spite of the lengthy history of horror which surrounded the property, Jonathan was determined to throw caution to the wind, to risk life and limb by making the farmhouse his place of residence, at least until he finished penning his bestseller.

The chilling chronicles had turned him into a legendary storyteller at his cocktail parties, and perhaps it was the sight of those enthralled audiences, listening with eyes wide and mouths agape, that had given him the inspiration to immortalize on paper the McAllister family history. But his heart was convinced that he needed to be there in the flesh, to stroll the countryside, to walk in the footsteps of his ancestors, to experience the farmhouse in all its grisly glory for himself, in order to properly tell his tale.

It was an undertaking he would be making on his own though. He was a gambler, but outside of Las Vegas his beloved Brittany was not. So, upon learning of his plan, she had wished him much success with the writing of his book, and had informed him in the next second that she would be unable to accompany him on his trip to La-la Land. She had then instructed him to save his breath for breathing as any further discussion on the topic would prove futile, and had attempted to ease her distress over their indefinite separation by indulging in a therapeutic trip to Tiffany’s.

Thus, one month later exact to the day, it was a solitary Jonathan McAllister who boarded his private jet bound for Scotland, with nothing but a laptop bag in one hand and a large duffel bag in the other. Alone, but not lonely.

CHAPTER 2

The morning air was still crisp when Jonathan stepped off the ferry in Armadale on Wednesday. He knew that he was risking it all just by being there, but he couldn’t seem to erase the smile that was curling his lips as he glanced up at the smattering of clouds which decorated the sky.

Everything he had and was – his businesses, his marriage, possibly his sanity, and perhaps even his very life — was riding on that one bet, riding on his conviction that his book would be a bestseller; but it was the ultimate high for him, and he was walking on air as he hurried toward the florid gentleman holding up a sign displaying his name in barely-legible writing.

His mind registered an iota of surprise at the fact that the driver he had hired had actually shown up considering it had taken him more than a dozen phone calls before he was able to secure the services of one Jason Hughes. The other locals had told him, in the most impolite way possible, what he could do with his offer. It had been obvious that the farmhouse was famous, or perhaps ‘infamous’ was a more accurate description, so it had seemed like a minor miracle when Jason’s wife returned his call just two days before his impending departure to confirm that her husband would be willing to drive him to the McAllister estate.

The Scottish native towered over Jonathan by almost a full foot, and his burly physique was nothing short of impressive even beneath the layers of clothes. But he was clearly a man of few words, and he offered only a curt nod by way of greeting before turning on his heel and striding toward a gray Land Rover parked at the other end of the lot, leaving Jonathan to play catch-up.

Poor guy. He probably thinks I’m crazy to be doing this, Jonathan thought to himself, throwing a quick glance at Jason already seated behind the steering wheel as he stashed his belongings in the backseat. He probably genuinely believes the house is haunted. Or cursed. It’s amazing what some people will believe.

By the time they stopped at a small supermarket in Broadford to purchase supplies, Jason still had not uttered a word. But Jonathan’s exhilaration at finally embarking upon his long-awaited adventure was too great to be deterred even by the driver’s surliness, and he ended that portion of his one-sided conversation by assuring Jason that he would be ‘back in a jif’.

It took him all of five minutes to load up his small shopping cart with provisions for the following week, and he was in the process of perusing the liquor aisle’s limited selection when an elderly woman with a full mane of shoulder-length blue curls approached him.

“Excuse me, son,” came the timid whisper, her eyes darting about them in a feverish search for nothing that Jonathan could see.

“Yes, ma’am?” he replied with a smile, instinctively knowing which direction the conversation was about to take given that the clerk behind the counter had been staring at him from brown eyes filled with suspicion from the second he walked through the door.

“You’re the McAllister lad, aren’t you?”

Apparently the news of his arrival had already made the rounds of the town, and he couldn’t help chuckling to himself under his breath even as his smile widened by an inch at her description. It had been quite some time since last anyone had referred to him as a ‘lad’, but he offered the wizened woman standing before him a brisk nod.

“Yes, ma’am. I believe that would still be me,” he affirmed.

“Don’t do it.”

“Don’t do what, ma’am?”

His voice had taken on a theatrical note as his eyebrows attempted to unite with his hairline, and he peered down at the small woman with wide-eyed innocence as her gaze continued to dart around the store as if expecting Freddy Kruger to leap out from behind the bottles of scotch.

“Laugh now,” she murmured, her voice adopting an almost haughty note as her lined face wrinkled further beneath a scowl, “but mark my words. If you go up there, you will die. That place is evil. I know. My late husband, Earl, God rest his soul, he started work up there when Sean McAllister was rebuilding that wretched house. And he quit after the first week. He said there was something about the place that just wasn’t right. And if you go up there, it’ll get you, the same way it got all of those that went up there before you. You can bet your bottom dollar on that.”

Was that a challenge? It almost sounded like a dare.

But the sweet old thing really believes something awful’s going to happen to me if I go up there, his inner voice noted. Looks like the stories about the house are even worse than I thought if she actually believes it’s going to ‘get’ me.

“Well, thank you for the warning, ma’am,” he began in a somber voice. He was grateful for the concern, more so because it had come from a complete stranger which was indeed a rare occurrence, but her statement had triggered something in him and he was determined to prove her wrong. Her, and everyone else who had told him in somewhat subtler shades the exact same thing. “But I assure you I have no intention of making it a permanent place of residence. I’m just here to get a feel for the house. To do a little research, if you will. And I’ll be heading home right after,” he informed her, knowing that he was lying through his teeth but wanting to put the old lady’s mind at ease for some reason.

“Do your research on the incanet, lad. If you value your life.”

Her mistake was a detail not worth quibbling over, especially given the dire nature of her warning, so he offered only a quiet smile and a nod of appreciation as she turned and walked away. But her words remained on replay in the back of his mind as he finished his shopping.

It was clear to him that the locals were more than a little spooked by the farmhouse, and he made a mental note to try to speak with as many as possible, hoping that it would give him greater insight into the aura which the house had created around itself, and provide a valuable contribution to his bestseller. But both the elderly woman and his intended interviews were forgotten as the Land Rover jounced along the graveled path that led to the farmhouse an hour later with a silent and stoic Jason behind the wheel.

Jonathan was hanging out the window like an excited puppy as he gazed up at the imposing building which loomed up ahead on their left. All he needed to do was stick his tongue out to complete the image. But he didn’t care. It was his first look at the house, and he wanted to soak it all in.

A sprawling two-storey structure built in the shape of an ‘L’ with what looked to be four turrets rising from the front at evenly spaced intervals, he estimated it to be at least ten thousand square feet, not including the two storage barns and the enormous silo, all of which still stood behind the main house. It was definitely not your ordinary farmhouse, and he smiled to himself as he recalled Brittany dubbing it a ‘castle’, but he understood then why she had used that term to describe it after finding pictures of the house on the internet.

However, he had been adamant in his refusal to view the photos, or to listen to any of the numerous articles which had been written about the house over the decades. He had refused to even let her describe it to him, in part because he was aware of her penchant for exaggeration but mostly because he had wanted to maintain the integrity of his first impression. He had known that the initial unveiling in his mind would set the tone for his entire book, and had not wanted it sullied by any preconceived notions.

And it had been worth it.